Planescape: Torment - Brian Fargo to Secure Rights to Torment

December 7th, 2012, 17:56

RPGCodex brings news that Brian Fargo has secured the rights to Torment, but not Planescape, which remains to be owned by Wizards of the Coast. They have investigated that Torment is now owned by a company named 'Roxy Friday', whose active officers include Brian Fargo himself.
Colin McComb has already hinted at a potential follow up of Planescape:Torment, so maybe there is more information in his next blog.
Thanks Brother None.More information.

I hope Brian Fargo delays development of the property until Chris Avellone has some free time to pitch in. Planescape Torment is one of my all time favorite crpgs. Although it was a bit text heavy for my taste, the writing was superb.
Here's a sample for those who missed this classic rpg…

Nameless One: "Can you dig around in my body for anything?"

Marta: "Marta can do that, cancha Marta? Yes you can!"

Nameless One: "Check the intestines… anything could be lodged in there."

Marta: You lie upon the table, and Marta stands over you, a rusty knife at the ready. There is a stabbing pain as she slices into your abdomen, then cuts brutally downwords in a saw-like motion, exposing your innards. Despite the pain, you watch in silent morbid fascination as she plunders your organs, humming to herself.

Originally Posted by Vindicator
I hope Brian Fargo delays development of the property until Chris Avellone has some free time to pitch in. Planescape Torment is one of my all time favorite crpgs. Although it was a bit text heavy for my taste, the writing was superb.
Here's a sample for those who missed this classic rpg…

Nameless One: "Can you dig around in my body for anything?"

Marta: "Marta can do that, cancha Marta? Yes you can!"

Nameless One: "Check the intestines… anything could be lodged in there."

Marta: You lie upon the table, and Marta stands over you, a rusty knife at the ready. There is a stabbing pain as she slices into your abdomen, then cuts brutally downwords in a saw-like motion, exposing your innards. Despite the pain, you watch in silent morbid fascination as she plunders your organs, humming to herself.

Just a small correction: It's not Marta but Morte! Marta is my mom's name! Imagining her slicing up Nameless One was quite disturbing =D

This is just nonsense. So basically they secure the Torment name, but in the end it's just to do a spiritual sequel, because they can't get the Planescape setting, really don't want to do a sequel anyway to Torment's story, and to avoid the D&D ruleset.

So basically the're no point in getting the name except for marketing purpose to get peole all excited about a "Torment 2".

And yeah no sorry, but a true spiritual successor would need Avellone and Obsidian for me.

(Not that I'm not saying inXile and Colin McComba couldn't manage to create a great game in the vein of Planescape… but the whole "Torment IP annoucement" just smells fishy to me)

Originally Posted by Sergorn
This is just nonsense. So basically they secure the Torment name, but in the end it's just to do a spiritual sequel, because they can't get the Planescape setting, really don't want to do a sequel anyway to Torment's story, and to avoid the D&D ruleset.

So basically the're no point in getting the name except for marketing purpose to get peole all excited about a "Torment 2".

And yeah no sorry, but a true spiritual successor would need Avellone and Obsidian for me.

(Not that I'm not saying inXile and Colin McComba couldn't manage to create a great game in the vein of Planescape… but the whole "Torment IP annoucement" just smells fishy to me)

-Sergorn

TNO's story ended with PS:T so any sequel would be "spiritual sequel" no matter if you call it planescape 2 or something else.

I do agree that true sequel would need Criss Avellone.He had full control over story in 2 games(PS:T and KotOR 2) and those are 2 best written games imo and I expect no less from games that claims that is spiritual sequel to PS:T.

I couldn't care less about securing or not securing Planescape. I didn't know anything about it before I played PS:T and I played it so long ago that I don't remember anything about it. I do remember it being an awesome game with a great story, so all I need to know is that the same people are doing a new game in the same style, they can make the game in a Little Town, Iowa setting and I'm fine with it.

Wow, you people are more negative than the Codex about this one. Is it because they have Colin McComb hanging out in the thread?

Colin McComb is a great designer and a decent writer. Avellone is swell and all but he didn't make PS:T on his own. He co-wrote a story using materials written by McComb, various Cook's, a Baur and others as framework. The quality of the game was built upon the quality of the setting.

Now, not getting the Planescape setting or name does suck. But it doesn't suck that much really! In the mid-00's, McComb and many of the PS designers collaborated on a setting book called Beyond Countless Doorways, which was clearly an outer planar setting that was heavily influenced by their previous work on Planescape. They weren't able to mention the Planescape setting once, even vaguely in passing, but they pulled it off incredibly well. If you want a more recent example of outer planar settings that aren't Planescape being awesome, Open Design/Kobold Press recently published a Pathfinder book called Dark Roads and Golden Hells. Mostly new writers involved there, but a quote from McComb accompanies the book proclaiming it a worthy successor to the Planescape legacy. High praise and potential publisher spiel? Indeed. Thing is, the book is awesome. It was less than two weeks before I had incorporated elements of it into my campaign.

So, while WotC is full of corporate-madness these days, that doesn't spell doom for this project. A good designer with good contacts in the gaming world and Avellones blessing should be enough. Seriously, if you love Avellone so much, why isn't his word enough? I am sure he'll be involved in some way, anyhow, once this becomes a thing rather than discussion about a thing.

Originally Posted by Vindicator
I hope Brian Fargo delays development of the property until Chris Avellone has some free time to pitch in. Planescape Torment is one of my all time favorite crpgs. Although it was a bit text heavy for my taste, the writing was superb.
Here's a sample for those who missed this classic rpg…

Nameless One: "Can you dig around in my body for anything?"

Marta: "Marta can do that, cancha Marta? Yes you can!"

Nameless One: "Check the intestines… anything could be lodged in there."

Marta: You lie upon the table, and Marta stands over you, a rusty knife at the ready. There is a stabbing pain as she slices into your abdomen, then cuts brutally downwords in a saw-like motion, exposing your innards. Despite the pain, you watch in silent morbid fascination as she plunders your organs, humming to herself.

I tried PST 3 times and probably more, and never succeed go past the first areas, from tedious fights to repetitive places and lenghty tedious verbous dialogs insisting a lot too heavily on "mysterious". The extract above is an example, boring pointless reading for me.

What's quite weird is that I remember have played it in French but it seems it never been released in French but through some fans translations.

Fallout 1 was in English only and grabbed me quite more so I'm not sure that cause is the language but it's possible. If it's just pure non sense (but for me the example quoted isn't that all, it's pure first level basic gore and zero humor) then I never ever enjoyed pure non sense and that's the simple reason I couldn't get the game. At least the first parts.

Certainly all due respect to M. McComb and Avellone; their abilities are without question. I'm just not sold on PS:T as the be-all and end-all of cRPG stories. Yes the setting was exotic and the situation unique; it just never grabbed a hold of my interest the way it seemed to do others. Shrug.

Originally Posted by darkling
Wow, you people are more negative than the Codex about this one. Is it because they have Colin McComb hanging out in the thread? .

As I said I'm not negative about the project per se, but I really dislike the whole "Hey we secured the Torment name to make a spiritual sequel" because that's just an obvious and lame marketing scheme since they obviously don't need the Torment "IP" to create a spiritual sequel.

Such an annoucement would make some sense if the also had rights for the Planescape setting but basically they just want to make people excited by making us thing we're getting a Planescape 2 (and it's working I've seen quite a few forum where people are thinking this means inXile is doing a direct sequel)

Yes, "Torment" is just part of the marketing for the project. Not only that, it is partly what ensures there will be a project.

This eventually will be a Kickstarter. Probably when they've got a good idea of when Wasteland 2 will be completed or soon after it is. We've recently seen quite a number of great ideas on KS fail and a few less than well fleshed out ideas fail. Would Thorvalla have been good? Shaker? We'll never know now. They couldn't get enough backers to meet their goals. The combination of quality writing, a (hopefully) quality development team and something to namedrop? That ensures this will even be a project, instead of just a pipe dream.

Personal "opinions" be damned, PS:T is a classic game and a genre-definer. You can piddle and babble about your tastes and how you feel it's not "the ULTIMATE RPG" and you can be as right as you want to be about it. It doesn't change what it is and what the purpose of getting the name is. Crass or not, it'll put the asses in the seats. Or, in this case, the $ into their KS.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
Why is it "lame", exactly? This gets them more recognition (gosh, I know, being successful is evil) and with Colin McComb on board they genuinely have creative authority.

Honestly, had they just made a PS:T -like game as you suggest, just as many people would bitch about how they ripped of PS:T.

Well, *I* wouldn't bitch, because it would feel more honest.

Let's put it differently : it'd be akin as annoucing "Hey, we secured the Baldur's Gate IP so we're doing a new Baldur's Gate… except it really wouldn't feature the city of the Baldur's Gate, or the Forgotten Realms setting, or any plot or story or characters from the original game because we couldn't manage a deal with WotC."

Duh.

Sorry but that would feel silly. And this is why I feel this is really lame. Well I guess from a marketing standpoint this is rather smart but it just feels like buying the IP to promote a completly separate product.

I just don't like that kind of stuff, and if it was was big publisher doing this instead of Fargo and inXile people would be bitching about this, with good reasons.

Not only that, it is partly what ensures there will be a project.

Does it ?

Frankly if Wasteland 2 is successful, and inXile comes and start a new Kickstarter project for a Torment spiritual sequel, people would get behind it whether it has the Torment IP or not.

As I said I'm not dissing the people who'll be doing this, if anything there are reasons to be optimistic (even if personally I feel a "proper" PST spiritual sequel would need Avellone especially considering for how long he's been talking about this)… I just don't like the whole Torment IP thing.